A new set of games will shortly be printed, so this means the rule book will be updated to reflect some of the changes that have already been made. After some discussions and experimentations about long balls and high passes, I’d like to run past you some edits to these plays to see what you think.

LONG BALLS
Long balls are fine as is but a tweak should be made when a player attempts to play a long ball from one final third to the other. These passes should be subject to an attribute check. Place the ball where you want it to land (not within 5 hexes of any of your teammates). Combine your player’s High Pass attribute with a dice roll. If the roll is 8+, the long ball is accurate. Carry on playing. If the combined roll is 1-7, the long ball was overhit. Roll again – this is how many hexes the pass was overhit by. Move the ball the appropraite number of hexes. Continue play with a movement phase, attacking team moves first. If the overhit long ball is going to go into the goal, the goalkeeper rolls the dice. Roll a 1 and the keeper fails to make a save – it’s a goal! Roll a 2 and the keeper pushes it behind for a corner. Any other roll means the keeper catches the ball.

HIGH PASSES
When a high pass is inaccurate, under the current rules there is no real detriment to the attacking team. From now on, if the high pass is inaccurate (combned score is 1-7), roll the dice again. This roll tells you the number of hexes the ball is overhit by. Place the ball on that hex. If the hex is occupied by a player, that player headers the ball. Otherwise continue play with a movement phase, attacking team moves first. Note – the attacker who positioned for the header can still collect the ball and attempt to score. If the overhit high pass is going to go into the goal, the goalkeeper rolls the dice. Roll a 1 and the keeper fails to make a save – it’s a goal! Roll a 2 and the keeper pushes it behind for a corner. Any other roll means the keeper catches the ball.

Just so I understand, the above long ball rule is ONLY for defensive third to offensive third long balls?

The house rules we have adopted over here is that a long ball from defensive third to offensive thirds requires a roll as above but the ‘over hit’ element is the difference between the value rolled + players high pass and 8.

I’m not sure how I feel about the goals from long balls, happy for there to be a rule but not sure if a one in six chance is too high (and also be possibility of a corner)… this would be fun from cross-shots (shoss) but I am wondering whether some of the craftier players would abuse this?…

High passes we have played the basic rules, however, if inaccurate, the ball goes to the nearest defender and the attacker receives a -1 heading for that challenge (3 hex player movement still applies). This seem to work pretty well, we also allow players to bring down the ball from successful high passes which I know may divide opinion!

Sounds good Colin. But I’d go with one more rule to give credit to well placed defence – you can’t play long ball to hexes surrouding any rival player. This would be most vital for free space between defenders and gk, which right now is almost not defended even, if you keep your defence really tight.

One question – in which direction pass can be overheated? Straight line of a pass counting in hexes?

On the long ball I’d say the inaccurate roll is fine but maybe not up to six tiles, for 2 reasons firstly it put the ball up to 12 hexes away from a player which is incredibly inaccurate, also craftier players would us the opportunity to bring that ball back towards their player.

Maybe go up to 3 tiles away in the direction of the pass?

For the high pass I prefer the house rule mentioned above, inaccurate goes to nearest defender but the attacker if still challenging suffers a dice penalty.

I like the simplicity of the high pass rule mentioned by Eightball. All inaccurate high passes lead to attacking team having a -1 heading penalty. It sounds like it should work (and it has clearly been tested), and it’s simpler than my suggested modification.

Long balls…yes, I see the value in only overhitting them by 3. I think we should go with that. To be clear: an inaccuracy check leads to an automatic +3 hexes away for long balls from one final third to the other. Ball travels in a straight line on the path it was on.

Koripl has an interesting suggestion about long balls played close to defenders. In theory, the movement phase (which, obviously, follows a long ball) all happens in realtime – all the players move at once. So there is no disadvantage to defenders in moving after the attacking team (save for when a snapshot is called…which I recognise can often happen after a long ball). It strikes me as a little unfair that there are no-go zones for long balls. What if…if the long ball lands within a heading zone, that player can choose to head it? That way the long ball couldn’t be played within 2 hexes of a defender.

Good in theory, the only reservations I have are that there could be an unrealistically high number of goals from players’ own half that the goalkeeper has rolled a low number for – then again perhaps rolling a one is fair. You could get people regularly claiming to play a long ball in the hope it will actually result in a goal.

The other is that the long ball being ‘overhit’, will still provide the same advantage for the attacker. Not sure about anyone else, but I generally I only play a long ball in behind to wide areas when there are no defenders or goalkeeper who could get across to it ahead of my quick attacker, so having an overhit long ball would make no difference really, unless it went out of play of course. If you hit them down the middle I guess the chances are it would bounce through to the goalkeeper.

I think the +3 rule for inaccurate long balls is good, it will stop those with 6 pace getting directly on the end of long balls as a punishment for an inaccurate pass. Thus allowing a movement phase or two for the defending team and moving the GK his full pace amount!

I think the rule with heading in conjunction with long balls should remain largely the same in that the attacking player can put the long ball where they want. If this is within 2 hexes of a defender OR the inaccurate long ball takes it into the heading zone of a defender then the play resumes as it would do with a high pass being contested in the air.

Long balls that end up being on target, how about if the GK cannot make it onto a hex that is directly on the balls flight path after their allotted movement (i.e. 1 for ball coming into the box and 1 for ‘shot’ from outside the box (maybe 1 more for a ‘snapshot’?) then the GK rolls for the possible goal as Colin mentioned previously (i.e. 1 = goal 2 = corner etc…)

Wait Colin, how long ball can result in header? Right now and after your accuracy changes it’s impossible as stays in quick play guide and your earlier words about starting movement phase after long ball.

About real time movement by the defenders, if ball is targeted just near them they will force attacker to stop, cause they’ll be much closed to the ball. Think about GKs, who still wouldn’t have any option to block such a pass from the wing, when normally they would make one step and catch it easily.

Actually I like idea with heading after inaccurate long balls, but I think we should check the accuracy if such a pass every time ( not only if pass comes from the defending third). So actually I agree with Eightball in this part but I don’t like what he says next about goalkeepers and shots, I think goalkeepers should just catch overhited balls. And by the way, what should we doo if the ball goes out?

I’m not a huge fan of the goalkeeping rule either, but there are circumstances where it does happen irl so I do think there needs to be a scenario for it. When I played with this rule on Friday we started to think about the possibility of cross shots / long balls into the box a little bit more which I’d never really considered before…

We had a long ball that was over hit and we started from the defending goalkeeper and moved 6 each. Nobody seemed to gain an advantage / disadvantage from it, I suppose it’s like a quick throw in back to the GK and reset if it were a real game but open to suggestions on this one…

I believe there suppose to be spaces where you can’t play long ball, cause in rl, footballers aren’t playing it wherever, but actually there where space is or could be. Right now there is no possibility to close the gaps by defenders, when opponent want to play the long ball. I feel there should be something and that would be not to be able playing the long ball into hexes adjacent to rival counters.

LONG BALLS
A long ball cannot land within 5 hexes of any of your own players, or within the immediate zone of influence of an opponent. Place the ball where you want it to land. Whenever you play a long ball, you must test for accuracy. An accurate long ball (combined high pass score of 8+) cannot land within 5 hexes of any of your players. An inaccurate long ball moves a further 3 hexes away (in a continuous direct line from where the ball had been kicked to where it was supposed to land). A goal cannot be scored via a long ball unless the goalkeeper is not inside the penalty area. In this situation, an accurate long ball results in a goal, while an inaccurate long ball misses the target and goes out for a goal kick.

HIGH PASSES
This rule stay the same as per the original rule book except for this: when a high pass is inaccurate, all attacking players who can challenge for the header have a -1 attribute penalty.

Thoughts?

POSSIBLE MODIFICATION: the GK always gets a free move of 2 hexes after a long ball has been played. Might discourage kick and rush?

Select any player to take the throw in. Run through a normal movement phase (4-5-2) and then take the throw. The ball can be thrown the distance of a first-time pass.

The only inauthentic thing about a throw in is the first step: select anyone to take it. Because you could pick a player who is at the other end of the pitch, whilst no-one else in that player’s vicinity moves